It’s all over and done, and they’ve fought the good fight. Now the ten winners of our special “I’m From Rolling Stone” writing contest go head to head for the ultimate challenge: scoring a gig writing for RS.com (among other prizes). We’ll announce our decision on Tuesday, so tune in then. And in the meantime, refresh your memories and read up on the ten talented writers who made it to the winner’s circle.

• Assignment One Winner: Mordechai Shinefield on Washington Heights, New York City
• Assignment Two Winner: Andrew Miller’s 10 Questions for John Mayer
• Assignment Three Winner: Jason Coon on The Wynn Brothers Band
• Assignment Four Winner: Francis Broderick’s Mixtape Festival
• Assignment Five Winner: Brent Baldwin on a Radio DJ
• Assignment Six Winner: Davis Baird on the Holmes Brothers
• Assignment Seven Winner: Brett Lindenberg on Meg and Dia
• Assignment Eight Winner: Chris Senn on Childhood Cartoons-turned-Movies
• Assignment Ten Winner #1: Dan Macsai on Saint Xavier University
• Assignment Ten Winner #2: Andrew Halberstadt on Flying F Biofuels

As Rolling Stone has already reported, Al Gore has twice been defeated in his attempts to hold the U.S. leg of his seven-continent, twenty-four-hour Earth Day event — featuring stars like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Kanye West — in Washington D.C. on July 7th. First the National Park Service (a division of the Interior Department, headed by Bush appointee Dirk Kempthorne) denied organizers a permit for the Mall. Subsequently, Gore enlisted Senate majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Sen. Olympia Snow to propose a resolution allowing Live Earth, which is expected to attract 200,000 to 500,000 people, to be held on the west lawn of the Capitol. But Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe vowed to stall the resolution indefinitely, leading organizers to withdrawal the request and look for another location for the event.

Initally, officials at the National Park Service denied Gore’s request on the grounds that it had approved an earlier application for an event July 7th on the Mall, and because an adjacent area had been reserved for a Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

On March 12th, the Park Service revealed to D.C. blog The Hill the identity of the group that had been granted a permit for July 7th: “Anna Godfrey-TOU.” Who is Anna Godfrey and what is TOU? A Google search reveals that she’s a church administrator who claims that God spoke to her and instructed her to unite all the world’s churches on July 7th. From her website:

On, November 30, 2004, God spoke to her in a vision called T.O.U. (Together One Unity). From this vision, God began to speak specifically to her of what He wanted done in the earth. God said, T.O.U., Together One Unity (the Body of Christ). God said, “no more division”, “no more separatism”…He said, “we are nowhere near ready for the return of His Son because we are too divided”. He went on further to say that we have 5 and 6 churches on one corner (what message does this send to the unbeliever). This togetherness starts in the home (marriages, parents and children) then to go the churches (clich’s and certain groupings) and ultimately throughout the world.

This vision will launch on July 7, 2007. The number (7) is God’s number of completion. The completion will be the end of division and pride throughout the body of Christ and the beginning of togetherness, oneness and unity.

Contacted at her desk at the Refuge Living Sanctuary International in Bladensburg, Maryland, Godfrey says she submitted her permit in August, 2006. She says that she had no idea that Live Earth hoped to use the Mall that day, nor had she been contacted by the National Park Service about changing her plans, but that she might have considered integrating her event with Gore’s if she had been asked. She also tells us that her group doesn’t have a following yet and that she’s just beginning to get the word out about the event, but after her email and poster campaign to spread the news is finished, she hopes for a draw of anywhere from 5,000 to 25,000 people. “This is not a thing that I’m doing,” she says. “This is a mission and a mandate from God Himself.”

Parks Department spokesman Bill Line says Godfrey’s permit application estimated that 100,000 people would attend her event. “We have to trust the information that people give us. There are over 6,000 applications that come in every year, andover 3,800 events that are permitted every year. The National Park Service does not have the staff to research each and every solitary application that comes in to that level.” Line says that he has no intention of revoking Godfrey’s permit based on her comments.

Our Weekend Rock List is evolving. Usually we take this time to entertain ourselves with classically rock geeky lists of things like the best songs that feature whistling, or our favorite songs written by Beatles when they weren’t Beatles. And you make your suggestions and its great in the moment, but then on Monday we move on as if nothing happened. Sorry, but we want more.

Starting this week, we’re going to let you help us compile the list. We’ll give you the topic on Friday; you scour the recesses of your rock brain and help us fill out the list. Take your time; we’ve got all weekend. On Monday, we’ll read your comments, merge your lists with ours, and then announce the official, definitive list so we can all get on with our week.

Sound like a deal? Let’s get started: This week we’re gathering the Best Rock Rumors ever. Our five suggestions are below. Yours?

• Stevie Nicks’ assistant had to blow coke up Stevie’s ass due to Nicks’ destroyed nasal passages.
• Roy Orbison was an albino and wore dark glasses cuz he was blind.
• Marilyn Manson played Kevin Arnold’s friend Paul Pfeiffer on the Wonder Years.
• Rod Stewart had to get his stomach pumped after ingesting a gallon of semen.
• Gene Simmons had a cow tongue grafted onto his own tongue after a car accident.

• We would tell you what we really think about the new Maroon 5 video for their new track “Makes Me Wonder” but they are coming here for lunch next Wednesday so we probably shouldn’t go there. Just kidding (about the telling you what we really think part, not about lunch, they are totally coming). Seriously, this video has all kinds of the right things, including pouty shots of Adam Levine in elegant menswear, well-appointed young women attending to him, and a sunset or two. Check it out. And stay tuned next week for the skinny on everything Adam ate for lunch.
• Trent Reznor kinda claimed all our energy for the is-it-an-album-is-it-a-project-is-it-the-apocalypse thing, but we are sure the interactive game being played by Bjork fans in honor of the May 8th release of her new album Volta is super fun.
• LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy would like you to know that he can’t be trusted. In a weird self-mocking/self-promoting/self-something mock public service announcement, Murphy warns us to watch out for him. Dude is weird, but he does rock. [via Pitchfork]
• Whoa! Paul Weller reportedly spat on a portrait of his archnemesis Sting. While at Royal Albert Hall, in London, on Wednesday night the Modfather saw the photo mounted on the wall of the venue, walked up to it and hocked a loogie onto Sting’s image. Then he walked away muttering “fucking tit.” Possibly true, possibly not, definitely funny.
• The new Beyonce video for “Get Me Bodied” is a mess of shimmery silver dresses and melodramatic dance moves. Are people going to start talking about “getting bodied” now? Wasn’t ‘bootylicious’ enough of a contribution to the vernacular for one pop star? [via Perez Hilton]

A patch that boosts sexual desire in women is available in France, Germany, and now the UK — but the prudish FDA has rejected it here, stating concern that it might be abused. Um, isn’t that the point?

• “Sex Drive,” Grace Jones
• “I Believe In Miracles,” Jackson Sisters
• “Medicinal Sweetheart,” Wannabes
• “Can’t Buy Me Love,” The Beatles
• “Orgasm Addict,” Buzzcocks

John Lennon used to pad around his apartment in the Dakota building, wearing a bathrobe, baking bread and taking care of his son. We would like John Lennon to have baked us bread. We would have liked him to make us eggs, or noodles with butter, even, or, like, lasagna! If you could attend a dinner prepared by any rock star living or dead, at their private home, who would that rock star be and what would they feed you?

Obviously realizing the “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drive Drunk” campaign doesn’t work so well on nerds with no actual friends, the U.S. Dept. of Transportation teamed up with some leftover Star Wars footage in 1979 to craft this head-scratching PSA.

• Reports vary as to how rocker Courtney Love dropped an estimated 45 pounds this winter. Did she drink sludgy protein shakes and eat a lot of steamed spinach like a good girl or did she get her stomach stapled? Either way, she looks Larry Flint-era svelte.
• According to Us Weekly Britney and Kevin have finally reached a divorce settlement. “All parties signed a global settlement agreement on all issues concerning their marriage and custody of their two children [Sean Preston, 18 months, and Jayden James, 6 months],” said Michael Sands, spokesperson for Federline’s lawyer, Mark Vincent Kaplan.
• Yesterday rumors swirled that Michael Jackson had been hospitalized, today his representatives deny those reports saying that while members of his team did get sick on a recent European excursion, the pop star was not forced to seek hospital treatment. We know this news brings a great sense of relief to every single one of you.
• Paris Hilton may be sent to prison for her violating her probation by driving with a suspended license (we all remember the starlet’s arrest for DUI back in September). We’re waiting for the hot pink “Jail/Free Paris” t-shirts to go onsale at Kitson.
• In our now daily summer tour update: The Lemonheads and Dave Matthews Band are both going on tour … not together you understand, but yeah. Tour. In the coming months. For both of them.

Who says winning is everything? When it comes to American Idol, ending up on top doesn’t necessarily mean you can cash in your life savings and start rolling around in a bed of thousand-dollar bills. In fact, for some former Idol contestants, the exposure they received just from being on the show has been enough to catapult them past the actual winners — and into the careers they always wished they had — long after the Idol curtain call.

There is, of course, Kelly Clarkson, who has managed to live up to the title, but what about Ruben Studdard, who won Season Two? Studdard has released three albums and sold 2.25 million copies overall. Compare that to Season Two’s runner-up (and inexplicable sex symbol) Clay Aiken, who went on to sell a combined 4.6 million over the course of three albums.

Perhaps the best example of a winner not performing as expected is Fifth Season Idol Taylor Hicks. Since nabbing the crown last year, Hicks has proven that just because he’s the kind of guy you’d dance with at your cousin’s wedding doesn’t mean you want him to be the one singing the song. He’s on his way to becoming the first Idol winner to sell under a million copies of his major label debut, with only 650,000 copies of Taylor Hicks sold since its release last December. His Season Five compatriots Kellie Pickler, Katharine McPhee and Chris Daughtry, on the other hand, have been enjoying near-constant attention. In fact, Daughtry, who finished fourth, released Daughtry just a month before Hicks and the album has already gone double platinum. McPhee’s record sales haven’t exactly been been phenomenal, but she has managed to stay in the spotlight through product endorsement and public appearances. Pickler’s 2006 release, Small Town Girl, sold 600,000 copies, just a shade under Hicks’. Not bad for a girl who finished in sixth place.

While some runners-up such as Justin Guarini (Season One) and Diana DeGarmo (Season Three) have watched their middling post-Idol careers dwindle, others are flat-out happy things turned out the way they did. For some, losing Idol is a relief. Back in June of 2005, Season Four runner-up Bo Bice told our Jenny Eliscu, “(I thought)’Please God don’t let me win this thing.’ I never told anybody that. The label ‘American Idol’ was not for me. It would have been even harder for me to play my kind of music if I had won.”
So how short-term is America’s memory? Who was your favorite Idol loser?

U2’s one and only guitarist the Edge spoke to our Evan Serpick about the latest fund-raising initiative of his Music Rising organization. On April 21st, top-notch music memorabilia from John Lennon’s glasses to Janis Joplin’s love letters to Elvis Presley’s recording contract will go on the block at New York’s Hard Rock Cafe, with proceeds going to aid musicians affected by the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “I’ve been amazed at how generous people have been,” says the guitarist, who created the fund in 2005 with Bob Ezrin and Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz. He knows whereof he speaks: He’ll be putting own cream 1975 Gibson Les Paul (which he bought during the Joshua Tree sessions in New York and has played on every U2 tour since Achtung Baby) up for sale. “It was one of those guitars that had songs in it. It’s a very well-used, well-loved instrument. I’ll miss it.”

The guitarist also confirms that U2 are in the midst of recording a new album. “We’re working on new songs and getting lost in the music,” he says. “I don’t think we’re going to try and think too much about what we’re going to do with it yet, we’re just going to do a lot of writing and just see what gives. We’re giving ourselves the luxury of just working on the songs. There’s some amazing things coming through.” He calls the material the group’s been working on with producer Rick Rubin “fascinating stuff.” When asked whether the band will team up again with longtime collaborators Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, he merely laughs: “You might be surprised how quickly that happens.”

Republicans have stymied Al Gore’s attempts to stage the July 7th Live Earth concert in the nation’s capital. Planning continues for the seven-city, twenty-four-hour event — Madonna confirms she will headline the London leg of the show at Wembley Stadium — but the U.S. host city will no longer be D.C., after a series of apparently partisan moves blocked the event from two sites near the Capitol. In March, the National Park Service, a division of the Interior Department (headed by Bush appointee Dirk Kempthorne), denied organizers a permit to hold a concert on the Mall, citing an undisclosed previous reservation. Next, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Sen. Olympia Snow introduced a resolution allowing the concert to go forward on the Capitol’s west lawn. Organizers hoped the resolution would pass quickly, but Republican Sen. James Inhofe — who has called climate change “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” — vowed to stall the resolution indefinitely, describing Live Earth as a “partisan event.” “It’s unfortunate that Senator Inhofe used the rules of the Senate to block an event like this,” says Jim Manley, an aide to Reid. “The environment is not a partisan issue.”

• Michael Jackson may be facing further legal troubles as Nona Paris Lola Jackson, who claims she’s the mother of Jackson’s three children, is petitioning the court for a shared custodial arrangement and, of course, child support payments. Nona has even been so kind as to put together a little schedule detailing the various day-to-day changes she sees taking place. By way of explaining why Deborah Rowe, Jackson’s ex, is listed as the kids’ birth mother, Nona apparently had this to say: “Debbie’s hospital records will prove that my kids are not hers because of DNA. I gave birth through the means of water birth because I am technically an herbalist.”
• The Shins covered Pink Floyd’s “Breathe” during the first of the band’s UK dates, Tuesday night. Now you can watch it here. [via Stereogum]
• TV show music supervisors are becoming increasingly powerful figures in the music business, as TV show soundtracks continue to see chart success and bands continue to see their careers defined by TV show exposure. This cool report takes you inside the job on This American Life via a conversation with music supervisor Jane Feltes. Kinda cool. [via Pop Candy]
• More tour talk: Dinosaur Jr. have announced a series of tour dates, as has Regina Spektor. Check out the dates after the jump.

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There are few sights more disturbing than walking in on your parents having sex, but seeing Karl Rove attempt to shake his moneyraiser to rap music is one of ‘em.

THE FORMULA: Hall & Oates + Brooklyn Hipsters - Irony = Tigercity

They’re firmly entrenched members of Brooklyn’s underground rock scene, but the members of New York City foursome Tigercity have roots that trace back to Western Massachusetts’ liberal Hampshire College. The group’s core members, singer (and Hampshire alum) Bill Gillim, 30, and bassist Joel Ford, 25, met back in 2004 on the campus blacktop. (Ford had graduated from the University of Massachusetts a few years prior, and, like Gillim, was still living and working in Western Mass.) “We were playing a game of hipster pick-up basketball with about fifteen other people,” says Gillim, who goes on to clarify the niche sport as “some throwback Converse sneakers, some long hair, and some guys who aren’t very good at basketball.” (more…)

You’re watching that Eat the Document footage of John Lennon and Bob Dylan hanging out, just chatting, while driving around London in a taxi in 1966. You’re feeling inspired by the fact that you’re witnessing two of rock’s most visionary, influential, fucking awesome artists sizing each other up. You pray to the gods of rock to allow you to orchestrate such an absurdly compelling moment with two artists of your choice. You are allowed to pick anyone from any era anywhere, put them in any scenario you can fathom, and watch what happens. Who do you pick? Where do they meet? And what do they say to each other?